New Releases: April 23 – 29, 2012

Tricked (Iron Druid Chronicles, #4) by Kevin Hearne

Druid Atticus O’Sullivan hasn’t stayed alive for more than two millennia without a fair bit of Celtic cunning. So when vengeful thunder gods come Norse by Southwest looking for payback, Atticus, with a little help from the Navajo trickster god Coyote, lets them think that they’ve chopped up his body in the Arizona desert.

But the mischievous Coyote is not above a little sleight of paw, and Atticus soon finds that he’s been duped into battling bloodthirsty desert shapeshifters called skinwalkers. Just when the Druid thinks he’s got a handle on all the duplicity, betrayal comes from an unlikely source. If Atticus survives this time, he vows he won’t be fooled again. Famous last words.

Be My Prince (The Royal Trilogy, #1) by Julianne MacLean
Blackbirds by Chuck Wendig
Coveted by Shawntelle …

Interview with Amanda Stevens + Giveaway goodness!

Happy Monday, book lovers! I’m beyond excited to say that we have author Amanda Stevens here at BLI today! She stops by to answer some of our burning questions about her paranormal/ mystery/ romance hybrid series, The Graveyard Queen. She also discusses some of the influences that go into her writing, as well as her take on those things that go bump in the night. You don’t want to miss this one (and worry not; no spoilers here!). Please give her a very warm BLI welcome.

Alisha: So happy to have you at BLI today, Amanda! First off: How would you describe Amelia and her world….Twitter style (140 characters or less)? ^_^

Amanda: Dark, lush, dreamy and Southern. 😉

Your protagonist, Amelia, is quite complex in her background, her abilities, her motivations, and her desires. What aspects about her first called to you? Was she originally conceived as she is now? Did …

New Releases: April 16 – 22, 2012

Love’s Rhythm by Lexxie Couper

His music moves the world. Can his love move her heart?

Nick Blackthorne knows all about words of love. They’re the reason he’s the world’s biggest rock star. The irony? He turned his back on love a long time ago, lured away by the trappings of fame.

An invitation to a friend’s wedding is a stark reminder of how meaningless his life has become. When he enters that church, there’s only one woman he wants on his arm—the one he walked out on a lifetime ago. But first he has to find her, even if all she accepts from him is an apology.

Kindergarten teacher Lauren Robbins once had what every woman on the planet desires. Nick. Their passion was explosive, their romance the stuff of songs…and it took fifteen years to get over him. Then out of the blue Nick turns up at her door, and …

Review: Urban Shaman by C.E. Murphy

Format read: ebook from library
Genre: urban fantasy
Series: Walker Papers, #1
Release Date: June 1, 2009 (reprint edition; original edition published June 1, 2005)
Number of pages: 416 pages
Publisher: Luna
Formats available: ebook, paperback, audiobook
Purchasing Info: Goodreads, Author’s Website, Amazon, Books-a-Million, Barnes & Noble, Book Depository

Book Blurb:

Joanne Walker has three days to learn to use her shamanic powers and save the world from the unleashed Wild Hunt.

No worries. No pressure. Never mind the lack of sleep, the perplexing new talent for healing herself from fatal wounds, or the cryptic, talking coyote who appears in her dreams.

And if all that’s not bad enough, in the three years Joanne’s been a cop, she’s never seen a dead body–but she’s just come across her second in three days.

It’s been a bitch of a week.

And it isn’t over yet.

My Thoughts:

I’d been looking forward to trying this UF series for quite some time. As far as urban fantasy institutions …

Review: Discount Armageddon by Seanan McGuire

Format Read: Paperback purchased by reviewer
Number of Pages: 368 pages
Release Date: March 6, 2012
Publisher: DAW
Series: InCryptid, #1
Formats Available: Mass Market Paperback, e-book
Purchasing Info: Goodreads,  Author’s Website,  Amazon,  Book Depository, Barnes & Noble

Book Blurb:

Cryptid, noun: Any creature whose exsistence has not yet been proven by science. See also “monster.”

Cryptozoologist, noun: Any person who thinks hunting for cryptids is a good idea. See also “idiot.”

Ghoulies. Ghosties. Long-legged beasties. Things that go bump in the night… The Price family has spent generations studying the monsters of the world, working to protect them from humanity-and humanity from them. Enter Verity Price. Despite being trained from birth as a cryptozoologist, she’d rather dance a tango than tangle with a demon, and is spending a year in Manhattan while she pursues her career in professional ballroom dance.

Sounds pretty simple, right? It would be, if it weren’t for the talking mice, the telepathic mathematicians, the asbestos …

New Releases: April 8 – 15, 2012

Royal Street (Sentinels of New Orleans #1) by Suzanne Johnson

As the junior wizard sentinel for New Orleans, Drusilla Jaco’s job involves a lot more potion-mixing and pixie-retrieval than sniffing out supernatural bad guys like rogue vampires and lethal were-creatures. DJ’s boss and mentor, Gerald St. Simon, is the wizard tasked with protecting the city from anyone or anything that might slip over from the preternatural beyond.

Then Hurricane Katrina hammers New Orleans’ fragile levees, unleashing more than just dangerous flood waters.

While winds howled and Lake Pontchartrain surged, the borders between the modern city and the Otherworld crumbled. Now, the undead and the restless are roaming the Big Easy, and a serial killer with ties to voodoo is murdering the soldiers sent to help the city recover.

To make it worse, Gerry has gone missing, the wizards’ Elders have assigned a grenade-toting assassin as DJ’s new partner, and undead pirate Jean …

Review: The Kingdom by Amanda Stevens

Format read: e-book
Series: Graveyard Queen, #2
Genre: urban fantasy
Release Date: March 27, 2012
Number of pages: 376 pages
Publisher: Harlequin Mira
Formats available: e-book, paperback
Purchasing Info: Goodreads, Author’s Website, Amazon, Kobo, Book Depository

Book Blurb:

Deep in the shadowy foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains lies a dying town……

My name is Amelia Gray. They call me The Graveyard Queen. I’ve been commissioned to restore an old cemetery in Asher Falls, South Carolina, but I’m coming to think I have another purpose here. Why is there a cemetery at the bottom of Bell Lake? Why am I drawn time and again to a hidden grave I’ve discovered in the woods? Something is eating away at the soul of this town—this withering kingdom—and it will only be restored if I can uncover the truth.

My Thoughts:

Atmospheric. Intense. Those are two words that keep coming to mind when I think about this book, a combination of quiet horror and lingering suspense. The Kingdom by Amanda …

My Wishlist: The “You Haven’t Read That Yet??” Edition

Greetings, fellow book lovers!

I’m coming to you today with a terrible confession. Though I’ve read hundreds of genre fiction books over the last few years, there are a few wildly successful/popular/beloved books and series that I’ve just not even touched. In such cases, when I mention to someone, “yeah, I’d really like to read that one,” I get a blank stare or disbelieving reply. “Uh…how can you not have read this yet?!”

I still can’t account for why that is. There are certain authors and series that I know I’ll love, if not from the first book, then after a few installments (such was my love affair with Anita Blake, from about book 3 to…maybe 16).

Hopefully, admitting the glaring holes in my reading resume will serve as the motivator needed to check the series out. With any luck (read: concerted effort), the following books will be read in no time.